Pressed by legal threat, Windsor Town Council to decide at-large elections

A frustrated Windsor Town Council opted Wednesday night to put off until next week a closely watched decision on whether to overhaul the way voters elect their five council members.

The discussion was the sole focus of a special meeting prompted by a Malibu attorney’s threat that he would sue the town if it did not scrap its current at-large election system in favor of district-based contests to fill the council’s seats.

The attorney, Kevin Shenkman, has initiated similar threats and court challenges in California under the a state voting rights law alleging at-large elections disenfranchise minority voters and candidates. He claims his efforts have resulted in over 100 cities statewide switching to district-based contests, including Santa Rosa, which made the transition this year.

Windsor, home to 27,000 people and incorporated just 26 years ago, is one of the firm’s smallest targets.

The town council has until Dec. 5 to decide whether to stand up to the legal threat or voluntarily make the switch.

“We are standing here with a gun to our head and we have to make a decision,” Mayor Bruce Okrepkie said Wednesday.

The two-hour special meeting included public comments and a presentation by town attorney Robin Donoghue outlining the pros and cons of challenging the allegations detailed in Shenkman’s Oct. 22 letter, which asserts - incorrectly, say Windsor officials - that no Latino has ever served on the town council despite Windsor’s significant share of Latino residents. Currently, a little under a third of the town identifies as Latino, according to census records.

Donoghue invited a Berkeley consulting firm that specializes in mapping and voter rights cases to lay out Windsor’s options.

The Q2 Data and Research consultants pointed out that Windsor’s small size would make it an outlier among cities that use district elections.

“With five districts, the ideal number of voters in each would be around 5,000,” said Karin MacDonald, principal consultant at Q2 Data and Research. “In Windsor, there would be about 2,000 voters in each district if you went with dividing it into five.”

Okrepkie reasoned that districting makes sense in cities like Santa Rosa, where each of the districts has a population that equals Windsor’s. But it may not be worth the fight just to prove the town is right, he said.

Under the California Voting Rights Act of 2001, Okrepkie said, “the bar is so low for showing that a town is disenfranchising their residents in elections that it’s a difficult fight to win.”

The cost of facing off against Shenkman’s firm in court was discussed at length.

Windsor resident Peter Stafford said if Windsor fought the lawsuit and somehow won, it would not close the door for other groups to come in and sue, potentially costing the town more each time. Windsor’s growing diversity could make it a continuous target for such suits, he said.

“There is no (guarantee) the town could win again in the future,” he said.

Donoghue cited the financial struggle Santa Monica has faced in its two-year battle court battle with Shenkman.

“Santa Monica lost in court earlier this month, costing the city $10 million in legal fees,” Donoghue said. “There is a substantial risk to Windsor were it not to voluntarily transition and there is an excellent chance that the town will get a lawsuit.”

Gina Fortino-Dickson, who came up short in her bid for a Windsor council seat this month, said she was angry when she first learned about the letter.

“My first thought was why are these people from Malibu inserting themselves into this small-town community without an understanding of how we live our lives?” she said. “I don’t want to make a decision based solely on the cost and pending litigation. I say let’s make a decision on districting.”

Vice Mayor Dominic Foppoli called out claims put forward by Shenkman’s firm that no Latino had served on the Windsor council. He pointed to Councilman Mark Millan and Esther Lemus, the top vote-getter in this month’s election. Both are Latino.

“Millan submitted documents this week that said his family is from Mexico and my family is from Nicaragua,” Foppoli said. “The basis of their argument is that we don’t have a representative, but we have at least three.”

Foppoli fears that switching to districts will make the Windsor council more provincial, where members would be more concerned with their own neighborhoods than the town as a whole.

Okrepkie, who spoke last, asked Donoghue if there was enough time to survey the town’s electorate town for its opinion on the matter. Given the time constraints, there wasn’t, she said.

“It is a slap in the face to imply we don’t care about the larger community,” Okrepkie said. “It is unfortunate that there are people out there who feel they can do this and I resent it in a way. We are better than that.”

The council is set to revisit the issue on Wednesday.